Yemen's ex-president Saleh stable after Russian medics operate

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A poster of Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh is seen on a door of a shop in an old quarter of Yemen's capital Sanaa, April 21, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh has had a successful operation at a Sanaa hospital after a Russian medical team was flown in to perform it, government sources said on Saturday.

The Russian team arrived in Sanaa two days ago and operated on Saleh on Friday for wounds he sustained in an assassination attempt in 2011.

Saleh’s General People’s Congress Party said the procedure was successful, and that his condition was stable.

Saleh was severely wounded in an attack on the presidential palace in Sanaa in June 2011. He went to the United States for treatment on one occasion, before a travel ban was imposed.

The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Saleh in 2014, accusing him of threatening peace and obstructing Yemen’s political process, subjecting him to a global travel ban and an asset freeze.

Government sources told Reuters the Russian team had arrived with approval from the Saudi-led Arab alliance but did not reveal the precise nature of the surgery.

Saleh ruled Yemen for 34 years, but was forced from power after pro-democracy protests in 2012.

Forming a surprise alliance with the Houthi movement when they seized Sanaa in 2014, Saleh’s army loyalists and Houthi fighters have weathered thousands of air strikes by the Saudi-led military coalition in more than two years of war.